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Thanks Chris!

jazzwee - I recently stumbled across this thread --- and what a thread it is!!!! I am amazed at what you are doing here.

I am being sucked into the jazz world in a very big way. I went straight to You Tube and began listening to a few of the pros play AL. I fell in love with Keith Jarrett's rendition. I started to transcribe what I heard.

The link below is a midi file. I am playing along with Band in a Box. I am playing the melody and left hand accompaniment.

Am I on the right track? (Sorry I didn't do it in the key of G. Jarrett is playing in Bb.)

http://www.box.net/shared/njn60o6g4o

Thanks so much for listening.

Barb

Wow Barb, that's almost an exact transcription of Jarret. I remember his version well. You did a great job there! You're on your way to great jazz playing.

If you have an ear for transcription, you should make a project of transcribing the whole thing. You'd learn a lot.

BTW - There are some corrections that you need to make there, mostly related to the length of the notes and the swing feel that I want you to pay attention to when re-listening.

If you count while you listen to Jarrett, you'll see that he's playing an uptempo version and the melody is being played as quarter notes. Quarter notes are played shorter than full value, which I see you correctly detected. But they are not eighth notes which is what it sounded like in your recording so lengthen them a tad. They should be quarter notes but with a noticeable rest (maybe a 16th rest) from note to note. This is what gives it that swing feel.

After you read our long discussion on swing and phrasing you'll have a good sense of the issues. Then listen over and over again to see if you can recognize what his phrasing is about. BTW notice that Jarrett's accents are subtle and he plays straigher eighths but the swing is still there and it is there even with the melody.

Even from just studying his melody there will be so much subtlety to learn.

Your method of learning (listening to the masters), is the most sophisticated way of learning because you'll be picking up these little things that we can describe in words only so far.

On the left hand comping, read the comments regarding the Charleston Rhythm, and also Chris Bell's music examples of LH comping. This is to make the LH swing. You might want to also compare against the timing of Jarret's LH comping which are not timed exactly to the beats. There's a triplet feel to it that comes from the Charleston. Remember that his version is very fast so it's harder to get a sense of this.

I love Jarretts version of AL. I have this whole concert on DVD.

Thank you, jazzwee. Since I do enjoy transcribing, I plan on tackling as much as possible of his version.

I appreciate all of your suggestions and will be working on that Jarrett "swing" feel.

Keep up the great job you are doing here!

Barb

Ok you swingin'. hep cats . . .
here's some weekend fun for you all.
2 tracks for your exercising.
Autumn Leaves of course . . .
Walkin bass and walkin bass w drums
mp3 as well as midi. mp3 is at 150 bpm. midi is at 120 but of course changeable.
Walkin bass mp3
walkin bass midi
walkin bass + drums mp3
walkin bass + drums midi

And for those of you who want to figure out what the bass is doing (and don't have access to a score app) here\'s a pdf of the bass line.
remember that all 8th notes should be played as triplets (see the third bar)

http://www.box.net/shared/10lfreio0c

Here's another recording, I played melody, variation and melody. I can't improvise but I add little variation to the melody.

The end is interesting because at hit the wrong note and got lost, I didn't want to do another recording so I played a few note at random and finish with Em.

Any comments to improve myself is appreciated.


Serge

That is really good but I want more, no wonder your nickname is Swingin' Barb !

Serge

I turn away a few days and this thread is up to 17; sigh, I'm never going to catch up at this rate. Excellent work, Jazzwee, I can see myself coming back to this thread as reference for years to come!

Serge88, that's great! The harmony on LH + RH sounds fantastic. And I also notice that you changed the melody to a more swinging version.

Here's some improvement tips. Stick to this melody format because it swings better. Now accent the first eight note, and then cut the 2 following quarter notes down so they're not legato. I think you've heard me say this same tip to just about everyone now. In general, read the section on Jazz phrasing which summarizes this. Anyway, this should be easy to implement.

The next step to improvement is to do a Charleston Rhythm on the left hand. Use Chris Bell's comping example as that's the simplest. This will take more time so don't worry about not being able to do it yet. But do do it with a Metronome.

Combining a Charleston Rhythm with a swinging melody is like a puzzle so give it some time to get your brain acclimated. I just want to make sure you practice it. Once you can play a Charleston Rhythm on the LH, the LH will develop a mind of it's own and you'll be able to swing it even with different patterns. It's really getting to know the quarter note triplet feel on the LH.

I was most impressed with your improvisation in the middle. Call it melody variation. I call it improvisation. Don't be afraid to vary it more since you know how. I think you could even come up with an alternate melody in the middle.

Serge, you're working pretty hard here as I can sense continuous improvement. We haven't been doing this for that long yet. Congratulations on excellent work!

Van, there's no deadline here. This is a long term thread. Several people just started. Start and continue at your own pace and I will be here to help when you get to an issue.

Thanks for providing meat for this thread Chris!

Serge88, that's great! The harmony on LH + RH sounds fantastic. And I also notice that you changed the melody to a more swinging version.

Here's some improvement tips. Stick to this melody format because it swings better. Now accent the first eight note, and then cut the 2 following quarter notes down so they're not legato. I think you've heard me say this same tip to just about everyone now. In general, read the section on Jazz phrasing which summarizes this. Anyway, this should be easy to implement.

The next step to improvement is to do a Charleston Rhythm on the left hand. Use Chris Bell's comping example as that's the simplest. This will take more time so don't worry about not being able to do it yet. But do do it with a Metronome.

Combining a Charleston Rhythm with a swinging melody is like a puzzle so give it some time to get your brain acclimated. I just want to make sure you practice it. Once you can play a Charleston Rhythm on the LH, the LH will develop a mind of it's own and you'll be able to swing it even with different patterns. It's really getting to know the quarter note triplet feel on the LH.

I was most impressed with your improvisation in the middle. Call it melody variation. I call it improvisation. Don't be afraid to vary it more since you know how. I think you could even come up with an alternate melody in the middle.

Serge, you're working pretty hard here as I can sense continuous improvement. We haven't been doing this for that long yet. Congratulations on excellent work!

.

Great stuff Serge!

You are clearly further along this wonderful road, than I am & I take my hat off to you.

Serge - I enjoyed your AL. You WERE improvising. Nice work!

Thanks for that extra push to transcribe more of Jarrett's solo. It takes lots of repeated listening, but is well worth the time spent.

Barb

ps I remember you from the Sudnow side. Isn't it great that we already know those color tone voicings!

I would also like to say to you - and to you others if you are worrying about - not catching up - not getting "it" in time - not being "good" enough - there's no finish line to this.
I've played piano since . . hmm well at least 40 years, with breaks. I've been and am a professional pianist; comping singers/actors/etc. I've had breaks in between doing others things (no playing at all for several years, then slowly bit by bit I picked up my playing from the floor where it had been laying for so long - and started to study the piano again at the ripe age of 49, changed my technique/hand position (still working at it), re-focused and actually started to learn to listen . . .
Playing music is a process that never stops, the trick is not giving up. And if you do . . then pick it up from the floor, dust it off and tickle johanna! (my mother is from east london :-)

Note Phrasing Issues

I just wanted to emphasize the note phrasing in Jazz that has been hard to communicate. It seems like it is a common thing that everyone needs to focus on.

There are many ways to play the AL melody as we've all seen here. If you listen to the way Jeff Bauer and I played the melody, we played the first four notes as:

STYLE 1:

Eighth (The) + Quarter (Fall-) + Quarter (ing) + Whole (Leaves)

In the original music it is played as

STYLE 2:

Quarter (The) + Quarter (Fall-) + Quarter (ing) + Whole (Leaves)

Whichever style you choose, one needs to examine the actual notes being played as jazz phrasing is very specific. Neither way is right or wrong as I've heard it played by the masters in both ways.

However, it is the phrasing that needs to be studied. Jazz is a lot about phrasing and proper phrasing will make it sound authentic. Listen to the way Jeff and I do STYLE 1.

Since the 1st eighth note is on an upbeat, it is accented and played legato up to the next quarter note.

The quarter notes themselves are cut short A LITTLE BIT. If you listen to the way I play it, it's very slight but that's what gives it the swing feel.

If you're going to use STYLE 2, make sure to play all the quarter notes a little short. By short, I mean there should be a little rest in between each one. One should hear that little space so lift up your fingers on notes 2 and 3, (or 1, 2, 3 for STYLE 2). BUT NOT TOO SHORT. Don't play an Eighth note and a rest. It should be quite a brief space.

Little things like this make a lot of difference.

There's a lot of quarter notes in this tune but if it were full of eighth notes, then we would be talking about accenting the offbeats and playing completely legato.

I want to be repetitive here to emphasize the point. For authentic jazz playing, including soloing, the handling of eighth notes and quarter notes need to be developed to an autopilot level.

Remember that this is not in the Sheet music. Phrasing is developed by listening. A prior teacher of mine had me play written jazz melodies for months to make sure I understood how to phrase it. The sheet music is written the regular way (swing, accents, phrasing is never written in). If it were the sheet music would be unreadable from the complexity.

This lesson mirrors that stage in my learning and one looks at sheet music/lead sheets differently after that (seeing hidden marks automatically).

Any basic advice on pedalling?

Hear hear!
Also, listen to jazz, a lot. Watch and listen to the Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett versions on YouTube, not just once but again and again. Imitate, and don't worry, your own style come on it's own. If you take the time to study AL in depth (as you are all doing), your playing will bloom out (is that a correct English? sometimes my adopted language gets in the way) when playing other standards.
A soloing tip: sing. sing your solo to the bassline I've given you, yes by all means, feel silly and self conscience, I do, but do it. sing 4 bars, play 4 bars. You'll be suprised by the ideas that'll pop up!
Two words: Ella Fitzgerald.

An excellent question that I completely forgot about Advice: Yes. Don't Pedal

Unless you're playing a ballad solo piano section, stay away from the pedals.

Which means one has to be even more conscious of legato playing. There's a technique I discovered that might be interesting to share. I was listening to Kenny Werner play a tune that was very legato but no pedals. I wasn't exactly sure how he was doing that since he was frequently syncopating, and syncopating implies you have to lift your hands.

So what I found was a technique of alternating the sound between LH and RH in Solo piano. So for example, if one is syncopating the LH chords, the RH stays put with pure legato sound. When the RH is syncopating, the LH is playing whole notes. And to the listener, it sounds very full because there is never a break in the sound.

In legato playing, even if one note sounds, the mind is fooled into thinking a whole chord is playing legato.

So the focus in jazz playing is more on achieving a legato sound by technique rather than pedal. The harmonies are usually already complex with extensions so too much harmonic partials from the pedal will muddy it up

In summary, I use pedals a lot. But not when I swing.